LagrangePoint- a great place from which to observe change

April 28, 2009

On the internet, everyone can here you whinge. Which is why companies need to be vigilant about how they are being spoken of online. A letter to the editor can be ignored and dismissed, a gossip around the water cooler or in the pub has limited reach, but a decent rant or whinge online can reverberate in the most unexpected way. The examples are coming in thick and fast, and are enough to make you think twice about ordering a certain brand of pizza. In this story for SmartCompanyI look at some Australian examples of brands copping a trashing, and at what options organisations have to save their reputation online.

March 10, 2009

Just back from a NYC brekkie with blogger and social media authority Paull Young. Paull is a great guy to chat to because he is genuinely deep into the mechanics as well as the theory of social media, and how to make it work for a client. As we were chatting something occurred to me. Much of the discussion amongst social media commentators relating to the use of social media by large brands and ad agencies focuses on how poorly many of them do it. Think about Bigpond's lambasting for its original use of Twitter, or the recent Witchery fake video brouhaha, or even the Metamucil blogger outreach imbroglio (I am running our of synonyms).

There seems to be a pattern forming here.

If you want to get your brand into social media, start by doing it badly. Maybe not so badly that you trash your brand, but certainly badly enough to get noticed by social media commentators, and in such a way that they start to comment negatively about you. With a bit of luck, you'll do it so badly that even mainstream media will hear about it.

Then, issue an apology. Say it's early days, and you are keen to be involved, and very sorry for not understanding the rules, but you are a big dumb old company and you're just trying to fit in. In most cases you will soon be forgiven, or at least pushed back into the category of 'notable attempts that didn't quite work' and people will go on to trashing someone else.

In the meantime, you have achieved amazing free publicity for your brand or client, courtesy of the people who are annoyed at you in the first place. Your would-be viral marketing campaign has indeed gone viral thanks to the people who really didn't like what you were doing anyway. Because maybe all free publicity is good publicity after all.

So are we all just being played here? Maybe the best thing we can do with a badly-executed social media campaign is to ignore it altogether rather than pouring oil on the flames and upping the oxygen content.